Spierig Brothers – Jigsaw

Jigsaw is quickly coming up to its release the 8th film in the incredibly successful Saw Franchise, this time around we speak to the Spierig Brothers Michael and Peter who directed the film.. you may know them from previous films such as Daybreakers and remarkable Predestination. There’s no spoilers here so enjoy our chat with them.

It is the eighth installment in the Saw franchise, picking up over a decade after the death of the eponymous Jigsaw killer during the police investigation of a new succession of murders that fit his modus operandi.

Accessreel.com – Give us a run down on what Jigsaw is about?Spierig Brothers – It’s set in the Saw world it’s ten years after the death of our main villian John Kramer hes been dead for ten years and there’s these bodies turning up all around the city and they have these links to Jigsaw.. the jigsaw killer and a group of detectives are trying to figure out whats going on because it can’t possibly be him because hes been dead, is it a copy cat.. there’s a real mystery around that and at the same time there’s people in jeporady in what looks like it could be another John Kramer trap but you know theres a thriller and ticking clock element to the whole movie and its just a great thriller.

Accessreel.com – What was it about this film that made you want to do it as its not your own script?Spierig Brothers – The script was really solid and good and when we first read it, it was a total page turner. Michael and I read a tonne of scripts and you sometimes struggle to get through the first 30 pages this was you know you just kept flipping through wanting to know what was going to happen and that’s a really great sign of interesting material so it started there and to Michael and I we didn’t want to make the most disgusting a gross Saw movie when we went in and pitched out version of the movie and wanted to avoid that and make it thrilling and exciting. The first movie wasn’t that violent it was more suggested obviously you see certain things but it wasn’t what the series became with the level of violence and gore So we wanted to strip that back a bit and get back to the interesting plot twists and the thriller aspect of it.

Accessreel.com – How is it different working a film that you guys actually created to one where the script is provided?Spierig Brothers – About three years! The time factor comes into it but there’s something so difficult about starting with a blank page, creating characters and story and build something out its such a lenghty process so not having to write absolutely everything is a joy and being able to focus more on the directing aspect is a really joy too so I found it great and also its intersting to delve into something thats well established you know with the previous films but also with this script it had fleshed out so many of the issues and so many things well they worked on the script for such a long time so it was great to come in with fresh eyes and being able to offer some perspective on the script because when you write your own material you can sometimes loose some perspective on what you’ve written because your so close to it so coming in with a more objective point of view and be able to decipher the things that work and it was also fun too like be very colaborative it wasn’t like here’s the script you must do it this way and you couldn’t change anything and wasn’t that at all it was very fluid and it constantly evolved. We brought in our production designer and DP and everybody. Everything was completely involving in regards to the traps how we were going to shoot things, the sets… it was nice to go into something with some objectivity and not sort of pre concieved notion.

Accessreel.com – What was it like working with Tobin?Spierig Brothers -To what degree we worked with him will remain a mystery… we spent quite a bit of time with Tobin and he is the gatekeeper of that character, he cares deeply about it. Tobin will write his own stuff as well, the dialog on a tape he will say Kramer wouldn’t say it like that so he would change the line and you can’t really argue at that point because no-one knows it better than him and it was great hes a very collaborative guy and they really lucked out when they got him to lie on the floor for 15 days in the first film.

Accessreel.com – Your upcoming film Winchester is based on a true story to a certain extent is that a different process from creating everything yourself?Spierig Brothers – Yeah of course its fascinating because we did a tremendous amount of research on the house and on the character of Sarah Winchester who’s the heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune and the place is real the person is real and so to do that is really exciting plus we got to shoot in the real house, we’re doing a period movie at a certain time when some real events happened so it was really a fun thing to do and also its a scary haunted house movie so you go down that road too of you know possible reasons why certain things were the way they were and why she build certain things and its just a really great story about a really remarkable and interesting woman.